Ordnance Survey

Mark Prisk: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government 
	(1)  whether private companies were consulted on Ordnance Survey's draft revised Public Task before it was approved;
	(2)  whether the  (a) GI Panel and  (b) Association for Geographic Information were consulted on Ordnance Survey's draft revised Public Task before it was approved.

Iain Wright: In April 2007, Ministers from the Department asked Ordnance Survey and the Shareholder Executive to work together to prepare a more precise articulation of Ordnance Survey's Public Task, as set out in the Ordnance Survey Framework Document 2004. This work was undertaken between April and June 2007 in preparation for the publication of a revised Framework Document for Ordnance Survey.
	As has been the case with the preparation of previous versions of the Ordnance Survey Framework Document, there were no external consultations on the Public Task, which fundamentally articulates that defined in such successive Ordnance Survey Framework Document since 1990, but in a more precise and comprehensive way.